Non-profit organizations are able to exist and provide services largely due to financial grants provided by foundations and other sources of charitable donations. Administration of these grants by the non-profits and the foundations that make them is a central focus for these organizations. Grant administration primarily centers on preparing proposals and reports about the grant. The reports are typically submitted on a regular basis, such as quarterly. These reports typically consist of a description of the services rendered with the grant money during the reporting period, a description of the prospective services to be rendered during the upcoming reporting period, and budget data regarding how much of the grant money has been used and will be used. Generally the questions and answers to these recurring reports are repetitive, but not necessarily identical.
Non-profit organizations often receive multiple grants from multiple foundations. While receiving different grants from different foundations, the reporting requirements of different foundations are typically similar. The reports generally ask for similar information regarding the different grants in a similar manner. Thus, in addition to the repetitive nature of recurring reports, non-profits commonly have to complete similar reports for different foundations.
In many cases, foundations have very specific reporting requirements that include prepared questionnaire forms for completion by the non-profit organization. In other cases, the foundations have less formal reporting requirements in which case the non-profit organization has some discretion as to how they prepare their report on the administration of the grant. In either case, preparation of these proposals and reports on a regular basis requires a significant amount of data preparation and entry.
A number of software tools are currently known that support grant administration by non-profit organizations and foundations. These software tools generally consist of a template that integrates with a commonly available word processing program that enables non-profits to prepare and complete reports using a stand-alone computer.